Happy Safari
"On me, I got the trail! Hyah!" Trooper First Class William Ingram looked over at First Lieutenant Adrian Stanap as the officer turned his horse into the greenish-gray scrub of the Republic of Levosia's borderlands. Looking at the other members in the Tracker platoon, all astride their horses clutching their LA1 automatic rifles in one hand, the low-hanging sun reflecting in their sunglasses. They shrugged. He opened his mouth. "You heard the man, let's go!" he yelled, spurring his horse and riding past them. Pressing his heels into the horse's torso, it jumped forward at a gallop, following into the trampled brush. Behind him, the whinnying of the other horses came one after another. But Ingram kept looking forward as Stanap's mounted form, silhouetted against the sun, began to grow smaller and smaller. "Come on you!" he growled, quickly digging his heels deeper for a moment as his horse began to charge forward, running over thorns and rocks without a moment's hesitation. Suddenly, Stanap held up his hand and his horse skidded to a halt. Yanking on his reins, Ingram's did the same, as did the horses behind him judging by the chorus of what he had come to call horse sighs. Bracing his rifle against his torso, keeping one hand on the reins, Ingram slid his hand off the foregrip onto the rifle's pistol grip, flipping the selector switch down from S to R, moving his finger off the trigger as he did so. Squeezing his heels again, he trotted up equal with Stanap, and turned to him as he raised his binoculars, looking at his 10 o'clock. "What is it sir?" "I got 'em. Two advisers to the militants, least I think so, they're wearing invisibility camouflage. See that clump of brush over there at my 2 o'clock, got both of them hiding there." he said, motioning again towards his 10 o'clock. "Orders?" Stanap lowered his binoculars and looked over at Ingram. "Fire one of the concealment rifle grenades, should outline their silhouette, then we move in on my go and nail them." Ingram nodded and turned his horse back, trotting back as Stanap continued scanning back and forth, never quite looking directly at the advisers, if they were indeed there. "Alright, Olson, load one of your smoke rounds. Clump of brush at the Lieutenant's two, fire it there, on his go, we'll rush in, weapons free." Trooper Olson nodded as he dismounted, still keeping one hand on the reins, and withdrew one of the turquoise rounds from his haversack and threaded it onto his rifle as he walked forward. Taking a knee, he flipped up a wide ladder sight on the front sight. Letting go of his reins, he planted the rifle on the ground. Moving his head back and forth a few times, he suddenly pulled the trigger and a loud and deep sound erupted as the round flew off, more like a Roman Candle than a gunshot. Several seconds later, a cloud of gray smoke appeared, and with it, two shiny visors glinted. "Got 'em! Advance and kill! KILL 'EM!" Stanap shrieked as he rode forward and to the left, lying down on his horse's neck, firing over its head at the targets. At the same time, the remainder of the platoon spurred their horses. Riding towards the right, Ingram noticed a cloud of red savannah dust following after the Lieutenant. Turning around, he realized there was not a single horseman alongside him. Before he could process the thought, his horse neighed in fear and fell over, sending him tumbling through the dirt as his rifle went flying from his hand and his bush hat from his head. Scrambling to his feet, he went for his rifle as a shimmering form knocked into him, pinning him to the ground. Drawing his bayonet, he lunged at the figure. Slapping the knife out of his hand, it grabbed his arm, twisting it and throwing him ass-over-teakettle to the ground. Feeling around for another weapon with his left hand, he grabbed onto a pistol grip. Leveling his weapon skyward at the form as it came down to deliver the killing blow, he forced the weapon upward into what he presumed was its midsection. It stumbled back slightly and he scrambled to his feet again, fumbling with his left hand to flip the switch from R to A as it charged at him again. Emptying the magazine, several bursts of crimson erupted from the figure as its active camouflage faltered, revealing a golden visored figure in blue and white armor. But it continued closing and knocked him to the ground again as he heard several cracks from his midsection. Bringing his hands up to protect his face as the SPARTAN pinned him to the ground, he began silently praying. And suddenly, they were answered as a salvo of gunshots sounded the weight fell off him. Opening his eyes, he stumbled to his feet and backed away. Emerging from the dust and smoke came three of his brown-uniformed cohorts, firing into the prone form as it twitched with each impact. As one approached the unmoving form, he delivered the coup de grace, firing two rounds into the back of the armored form's neck. Taking a deep breath, he looked at the others, grimacing at the pain. "You okay?" "I wouldn't say that." "Alright, we'll get you patched up, but the LT wants confirmation to send up so we can get someone to retrieve these two." "Two?" "Yeah, there were two." "Whatever, let's get this over with." ** "Is this the part that bothers you the most?" Master Sergeant Ingram looked up at the civilian-clothed therapist. "Yeah." he said. "Yeah, it is." "Go through it with me, please." "So...we...we got the two corpses together, pulled off their helmets so we could get a look at them...and...and-" Ingram broke down in tears, sobbing loudly and shamelessly as he choked out some words in quick bursts as he could. "They-They couldn'ta been older than 15 or 16. One was a brunette with blue eyes, other one was darker-skinned, brown eyes, girl and a boy. Oh God, the look on their faces. "It was pure terror. I didn't want to die, but they didn't either. They were teenagers. And I shot them dead, the last human face they saw was mine when I killed them. I killed kids for God's sake." "It wasn't you who killed them, you yourself said it was another one who delivered the coup de grace." "But it was me. The one I shot was dead when she hit the ground, he just made sure of that. I killed kids. And I got a medal for it. I don't know sometimes." "Know what?" "I don't know, I just don't know sometimes about anything." Category:Safe Havens Category:The Weekly